What do you think is the most important quality of Gothic stories? Is it the ability to shock and frighten or the ability to create suspense and mystery? Explain.

I think that the ability to create suspense and mystery is far more important than creating shock and the ability to frighten people today. After watching several horror movies or even normal movies, the scenes in which people are going to be shocked by a ghost or a supernatural being can be easily predicted. When the music gets soft and quiet and the lights get dimmer, you can just predict that something or someone is going to come out to shock you. In these circumstances, the shock is no longer a surprise but an expected event which then loses its quality.

On the other hand, creating suspense and mystery is way more important in Gothic stories because it allows your mind to play tricks on yourself. You start imagining possible scenarios and frightening yourself before you have even finished the plot. Unless you skim or rush through a Gothic story, even people with the least vivid imaginations will get more scared than if it is just a shock as then you yourself imagine your worst fears and those fears start to become reality to you even though it is not. You will try to solve the mystery or think of a likely ending or outcome after the suspenseful moment and it will be all the worse when it is Gothic horror because your imagination plants scary images and ideas which no matter how surprising a moment of shock is or how scary that frightening moment is, that moment is never as scary as your own imagination.